The first decision you need to make when creating a new Xamarin Forms project is whether the common code should be kept in a Portable Class Library (PCL) or Shared [code] Project (SP). Coming as I was from Microsoft Universal app territory I was already predisposed towards using the Shared … Continue reading →

This is the first of a series of posts covering my new adventures in Xamarin. For those not yet in the know, Xamarin is a cross-platform mobile development system that allows C# programmers to create native iOS and Android applications using the delicious C# language they already know and love. … Continue reading →

When I started this post I found myself writing about the history of inheritance as a technique, of how far back it goes and various languages that supported inheritance long before .Net inheritance came on the scene. Needless to say I scrapped most of that – if you’re here reading … Continue reading →

Did you feel a slight disturbance in the force? That was Microsoft releasing [in beta] Project Siena, a Windows 8 “modern” app that allows non-developers (and devs looking for a shortcut and/or prototype) to very quickly create very functional Windows 8 Modern applications. When I say “very functional” I mean … Continue reading →

I had a conversation the other day with another developer who was annoyed with a small problem. He had just been handed a block of data that needed to be imported into a SQL database for an application he was developing. It was a one-time load and at about 50,000 … Continue reading →

I was recently talking with a friend of mine about how best to edit some values in a Microsoft SQL Server table. There were several hundred rows in the table and outside of attaching to it via Access there was talk of writing a “quick” program to do it, etc. … Continue reading →

If you’ve been reading [other] recent blog posts by certain industry commentators interpreting statements made by Microsoft’s Julie Larson-Green at last week’s UBS Global Technology Summit you may well be thinking that Windows RT is dead. You may be thinking that Microsoft is planning to reduce their stable of Windows … Continue reading →

Sometimes you come across a tool or utility that’s just too good not to tell everyone you know about it. Feed For Free is just such a tool. Feed For Free (or Freed43 as it’s called on its website) is a free online web page parser whose purpose in life … Continue reading →

I’ve seen a lot of companies over the years launch product reinvention initiatives designed to breathe new life into their businesses, capture more market share, and in some cases “get back in the game” after a long sabbatical from continuous innovation. The latter situation is the one that tends to … Continue reading →

Microsoft now has a [fairly] solid, credible ecosystem that incorporates desktop, tablet, phone, and even the “living room” with Xbox, all tied together via SkyDrive. My feeling is that the most successful software projects over the next few years will be those that offer a solution that touches as many … Continue reading →